


let slip the dogs of war

by xombiebean



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Comeplay, Crying During Sex, Deepthroating, Families of Choice, Found Family, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex, Size Difference, codependent relationship, sex tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:47:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xombiebean/pseuds/xombiebean
Summary: Billy sees the wildness in Frank right off, one animal recognizing the other.





	let slip the dogs of war

**Author's Note:**

> warning: attempted noncon in part i, but barely anything happens before frank barges in. a man tries to force oral on billy.
> 
> look, i don't know what happened here. 
> 
> title from the tragedy of julius caesar by william shakespeare. yeah im a corny fuck.

“It’s simple: I just don’t know  
how to love a man

gently. Tenderness  
a thing to be beaten  
  
into.”

– _Into the Breach_ by Ocean Vuong

 

 

i.

They meet at the Ray of Hope home, a temporary solution for kids in the system. Billy sees the wildness in Frank right off, one animal recognizing the other. Frank’s nonverbal, blank as a slate: he eats, he does his chores, he runs, he sleeps, he wakes up in a cold sweat.

Somehow they get roomed together. Let’s call this fate.

Frank’s been there longer than the rest of the kids, who are smart enough to steer clear of him. He’s too strange, too unnatural; his gaze is intense, taking in everything and focusing on nothing. He’s big, too, more of a Doberman than a boy, even though he’s only at age fifteen. The rest of the kids think he’s stupid, but Billy knows better. Stupid don’t read classics like they’re going out of print.

Billy isn’t popular with the other kids either, but he isn’t a total pariah. He settles into his new life, a mountain lion pretending to be a housecat. Frank might as well be a ghost for all they interact. If he’s not doing an assigned task, he’s usually lying in bed on his back, idly tossing a pigskin, or he’s off in his secret spot smoking. Nicotine smells better on Frank than on Billy’s mama, somehow.

The bad man takes Billy outside and teaches him how to throw a ball, then swing a bat. He tells Billy that he’s got a nice smile, that he should smile more. You can say a lot of things about Billy Russo, but he ain’t no fool. He knows what the bad man really means when he looks at his mouth; his breath catches, sometimes, when he’s not careful and he focuses too long on Billy’s spit-shiny lips. Billy still remembers the last thing his mama told him before CPS took him: _Ain’t nothing good comes from a face that pretty._

The bad man takes him aside one day, and after their usual playing at baseball, tells Billy they’re gonna play a new game. His hand moves to the zipper of his worn-in, faded jeans, and Billy lets his bat fly. He may catch him by surprise, but the bad man takes the bat and gets him one arm behind his back, ass up in the grass.

Billy doesn’t scream, but Frank comes anyways, barreling towards them with an inhuman roar. He rips the bad man off Billy and beats him bloody, swinging sledgehammer fists. The bad man howls, his face a mess of bloody pulp, and Billy just watches, entranced. He’s never seen anyone look as beautiful, as transcendent, as Frank does now, face and fists covered in splattered blood, knuckles split open, grunting with each swing. The bad man begs him to stop, and Frank brokers a deal: don’t come back.

Frank spits on the ground once the bad man’s gone.

“All right, Bill?” Frank says, switching his attention to Billy.

Billy nods and tries to push himself up to stand, but falls back the instant he tries to put weight on his left arm. “I think something’s wrong with my arm,” he says.

Frank kneels next to him. After examining Billy’s arm, he hums and says, “Think it’s broken.” He studies Billy’s face. “Can you walk back?”

“It’s my arm, not my legs,” Billy says, and Frank grins at him. He pulls Billy up. “What about—” Billy starts, then gestures vaguely, unable to finish his question.

“He won’t want anyone looking too close,” Frank says, with a menace in his words. He starts towards the house, and Billy trails after him.

“How’d you know anyways?” he asks. “I didn’t scream.”

“I knew ‘cause I couldn’t hear you anymore,” he says.

“What were you doing out here? Smoking?”

“Yeah,” Frank says, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.

“Can I have one?” Billy asks, feeling bold.

Frank just laughs at him. “Little young, don’t ya think?” He ruffles Billy’s hair gently. Billy pouts back at him, which just makes Frank laugh harder.

 

ii.

Billy sticks to Frank like a burr, or maybe Frank just never lets him out of his sight. He’s not really sure who needs whom more, both of them two boys too feral for a forever home. He just knows that this is the first time he’s had a real family.

Frank’s devotion is a heady thing, and Billy finds that he fits under his arm as if they were made for each other. He becomes addicted to the way his name sounds in Frank’s mouth. No one’s ever referred to him with such warmth, such unashamed, unabashed fondness.

 

iii.

“Hey, Bill?” Frank says, his voice soft and tentative, drifting across the space between them.

“Yeah,” Billy answers.

“I turn eighteen tomorrow,” he says hesitantly. “You know what that means?”

Gathering his courage, Billy crosses the no man’s land between them. He climbs into Frank’s bed, graceful and silent as a cat. Frank reels him in, with an arm around his shoulders, and lets him curl into his side.

“You leaving me, Frankie?” Billy says, and his words come out more accusatory, more biting, than he intends.

“You know I ain’t got a choice.”

“I bet you have it all planned out,” Billy says, spitefully. “You’re gonna leave me behind and find a nice girl and settle down and forget all about me.” Bile rises in his throat, and he’s not a little kid anymore, but he’s tearing up anyways. Somehow he just thought that Frank would never leave him. Everyone leaves eventually. Turns out Frank ain’t any different.

“Hey,” Frank says, voice soft as if he’s gentling a spooked animal. He cranes his head to look at Billy’s face, so Billy hides his face against Frank’s shirt. “Hey, where’s this coming from? Where’s this coming from, huh?”

Billy sniffles pathetically.

Frank runs his fingers through Billy’s hair, then slides his hand down to rest at the nape of Billy’s neck, his thumb rubbing gentle circles against his cheekbone. “If I could take you with me, I would. You know I would.”

“So take me.”

Frank presses a kiss to the top of his head. “I ain’t leaving you ‘cause I want to. But you know I can’t stay here. I’ll work for Uncle Sam, and we’ll get a place together when you age out, huh?”

Billy doesn’t say it, but he’s still got five years till he becomes a legal adult. Five years is a long time. His mama couldn’t remember him one day to the next.

“Bill,” he says, prompting him when Billy doesn’t respond to his little spoken daydream. Billy _hmm_ s in response. “You’re my brother. I’d come back from the dead for you.”

He’s gone when Billy wakes.

 

iv.

No one protects Billy Russo but Billy Russo.

 

v.

“God _damn_ , look at you.”

Four years and two tours, and Billy’s sitting next to Frank in a dive bar where they don’t look twice at his fake. “Yeah?” he says, a little buzzed already. Seeing Frank after a long absence is always overwhelming. Frank just keeps getting bigger and thicker, and _Christ_ , Billy wants Frank to take him apart, wants Frank to get his big hands on him and ruin him. He wants Frank to leave a constellation of bruises that he can trace once Frank ships out again. He wants Frank to swallow him whole.

“So goddamn beautiful, and you know it, huh?” Frank’s appreciative, but there’s no heat, no want in his eyes. “Fuck me, you grew up fast.”

Billy grins at him brilliantly, happiness leeching out of him.

“Yeeeeahhh, you know it,” Frank says. “That’s my boy.”

A straight shot of pleasure and pride suffuses Billy, sparks in his spine, and makes his brain tingle pleasantly.

“Got plans for when you get out?”

“Yeah,” Billy says. “I’m gonna enlist, same as you.”

Frank goes still and blank as stone. “No,” he says, all mirth gone from his face.

“Fuck you, you say no,” Billy spits out on animal instinct.

“I’m telling you—I’m telling you, Bill, you ain’t fucking doing this.” Frank shakes his head like a wild dog, then swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, works his mouth. “Nah, you ain’t—I gotta—”

“You gotta what, Frank?” Billy says, his eyes all pupil, his mouth a savage snarl. “You gotta keep leaving me behind?”

Frank looks spooked, crazy, like the kids used to call him. He’s all trapped motion coiled in a body built like a fort.

“Fuck you, you think you have a say in this?” Billy spits.

Frank rubs at his mouth, his eyes darting to the side, before he can meet Billy’s gaze again. “I can’t keep you safe over there, Bill,” he says, more than a little broken.

“You can’t keep me safe over here,” he says, with venom.

“What do you mean? What do you mean—did someone—Bill, tell me what to do.”

“No,” Billy says, just to watch Frank clench his jaw, watch that muscle at the end of his mandible flicker. “I’m not your wife. You can’t just—”

“No,” Frank snaps. “But you’re mine.”

Billy collapses, strings cut. There’s no use denying it. “There ain’t anything else for me here,” he entreats. “All I got is a pretty face.”

Frank mulls it over, mouth working. “All right,” he says at last. “All right, Bill.” He laughs darkly. “Christ, you really grew up, huh?”

“Shut up, Frank.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, settling a hand on Billy’s back and rubbing his shoulder. “Goddamn, kid.”

 

vi.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: two boys go to war, the weight of their country on their backs. They do what they are told. They are broken down and built back up. They fight without purpose, without cause, according to the wills of men with soft hands who sit in pristine offices.

They lose themselves, but they do not lose each other.

 

vii.

“ _Christ,_ Bill, yeah, that’s—right there,” Frank gets out, gritting back a moan swamping his lungs. He’s sitting on his cot, thighs spread wide, with Billy kneeling on the ground between them, choking on his fat cock. Billy’s drooling saliva, and goddamn, he looks wrecked, his black eyes wild and bright. “Fuck, Bill, you’re gorgeous, you know that? Your fucking mouth,” Frank says reverently. He’s got one hand on Billy’s jawline, steadying him, the other in his hair tight enough to make Billy’s skull ache later. He dips his thumb into Billy’s mouth, alongside his cock, and Billy groans, eyes closing helplessly as Frank tames the wild thing in him for the time being. “Goddamn, goddamn,” Frank says, like a prayer. “You’re such a goddamn slut, aren’t you, Bill? Huh? Ain’t that right, sweetheart? You ain’t happy ‘less you got a thick cock stretching you open.”

“Yes,” Billy says, the word stretched and diluted between Frank’s cock and his thumb.

“Yeah,” Frank echoes approvingly. “Yeah, you are.”

Billy nods, makes a needy noise, and Frank pulls his thumb out of his mouth and pulls him off his cock by his pretty black hair. Billy fights him, but Frank shakes him like a misbehaving dog, and Billy goes pliant in his hands.

“You want this?” Frank asks, holding Billy an inch from the head of his uncut cock.

Billy nods frantically. “Yes,” he slurs, eyes near about crossing ‘cause he doesn’t want to look away from Frank’s dick. He sways towards it, but Frank’s holding him firmly. “Please, fuck, c’mon, Frank, c’mon, don’t fucking tease me, please, c’mon.”

Frank slaps him with his cock, the sound slick and obscene, and then he drags his cock over Billy’s mouth, painting him with precome. Billy stays still, his mouth watering with want. He’s a snotty mess at this point, chin dripping with drool and precome. “Yeah, that’s a good boy,” Frank says approvingly, somehow deciding that Billy’s suffered enough, waited enough. He guides Billy back on his cock, and Billy drinks him down gratefully.

“C’mere,” Frank says, after his cock goes soft. Billy lets it slip out of his mouth. Frank pulls him up onto his lap, and Billy goes, straddling his thighs that are so thick they make Billy’s twinge in protest. Frank eases out Billy’s cock, spits in his palm, and jerks him, just the right side of too much.

Billy doesn’t know when he starts crying, little hitching sobs, till Frank pulls him closer and kisses him. He sucks on his tongue, as Billy winds his arms around Frank’s neck. He’s gently rolling his balls in his palm, while jerking him slowly. Billy tucks his face under Frank’s chin, against the hollow of his throat.

Frank shushes him softly. “Look at you,” he says, wonder clear in the growl of his voice. “Look at you.” Billy comes, biting down on Frank’s carotid as he does, and Frank milks him through it. “That’s it, Bill,” he says, “that’s my boy.”

Billy slumps against him completely and licks delicately at Frank’s fingers as he feeds him his come. Frank presses a kiss to his forehead. “Good boy,” he says, and Billy whimpers.

 

viii.

God can take whatever he wants from Frank Castle except for Billy Russo. Frank holds onto his boy with both hands. He ain’t letting him go ever again.

Billy wants Frank with a ferocity that he cannot reconcile. He does not know how his desire lay dormant this long, only that he never wants Frank more than when he’s bloody and beaten and bruised, when he’s hyped up on Rip It and adrenaline, more animal than man, grunting as if violence is his mother tongue. Another marine propositions Billy, makes a nasty comment about his mouth, and Frank near about tears his head off. Desire eats at Billy like a flame. Frank is his other half. Frank is the only other person that matters.

Come hell, come high water, Frank ain’t ever getting out.


End file.
